Mach's Legacy

by D. W. Patterson

  “Dr. Jackson I'm Emmy Gibbs a student in Astrophysics at Centauri Two University.”

  “Yes Ms. Gibbs?”

  “Sir I listened to your talk and I think I have an idea about the physical phenomena causing Moses' Rod.”

  Jackson winced.

  “Please Ms. Gibbs I dislike that name.”

  “Of course sir as you wish. But the physical manifestation causing the red line could be something my great-great grandfather Elias Mach discovered.”

  “Elias Mach? You mean the inventor of the wormhole drive? You are related to him?”

  “Yes sir, on my mother's side of the family.”

  “Well tell me then how does a discovery of the famous Dr. Mach relate to the red line?”

  “The red line was predicted by Dr. Mach to be a tell-tale sign of a wormhole that had been maintained over a long amount of time. And he proved it experimentally.”

  “I see but one thing. A ninety light-year long wormhole? No one has ever made a jump that long.”

  “That's true sir but in the Aggie War the break-away faction was able to open a wormhole from the Trilos System, a distance . . .”

  “A distance of more than forty light-years,” said Jackson interrupting.

  “Exactly. So in the last one hundred years or so they've figured out a way to increase the distance by two to three times. Sounds reasonable.”

  “I'm afraid so. But who do we tell?”

  “We should ask my grandfather, he would know.”

  Emmy paused, “That is if you want to go.”

  “Are you kidding, meet Elias Mach, let's go.”

  Since retiring from experimental work Elias and his wife Burgess lived in a house not far from the university rather than their more rural and famous house where he had performed his wormhole experiments. The house was on a side street and the curvature of the great habitat became noticeable as one walked further “up” the street. It seemed as if one were rising above the town of Mecklinburg, as if climbing a hill, but it took no more effort than walking Main Street which ran perpendicular to the Mach's street and in the direction of the habitat's length.

  Dr. Jackson and Emmy had walked from the university. Dr. Jackson had brought a copy of his paper on the red line. At the front door of the house which had a small porch set only a few feet from the street Emmy imprinted her thumb on the door pad. Almost immediately the door opened and they walked into the entry hall.

  There they met someone that Dr. Jackson took to be a servant. Actually it was a family friend, a robot named Dag that used to work with Elias Mach's wife Burgess when she had a detective agency.

  “Dag,” said Emmy, “How nice to see you, I wasn't expecting to find you here.”

  “Yes Miss, I arrived from Earth just yesterday. Elias and Burgess offered to put me up.”

  “Oh, let me introduce you to Dr. Moses Jackson.”

  “The discoverer of Moses' Rod?” asked Dag.

  “Yes but I prefer not to use that designation.”

  “Understood sir.”

  “You were on Earth Dag? How is it?” asked Emmy.

  “The situation is improving Miss. Some of the original ANI based AIs such as my friend Sigmund have been a great help in getting the large cities they call tower complexes working efficiently again.”

  “I thought Sigmund had been destroyed by the Beleni Dag?”

  “I too Miss. But Sigmund had backups available that allowed him to be restored.”

  Dag then told them more about Sigmund and about the reconstruction on Earth and how some of the Em-based families (Em stood for emulated brain, a copy of a human brain run in computer hardware) had returned and taken up their old duties of smoothing the rough edges off of what was left of Earth society. The people there were beginning to feel confident again about their future.

  “Wonderful news all around Dag,” said Emmy.

  Just then Elias walked into the room.

  “Hello Emmy how are you?” he said as he gave her a hug.

  “Very well grandfather. Grandfather this is Dr. Moses Jackson.”

  “Oh yes. The discoverer of Moses' Rod. Welcome to my home.”

  “Thank you sir and please call me Jack,” said Dr. Jackson, for once not correcting the speaker.

  Emmy and Dag looked at each other knowingly. They had seen many people awed by the two time winner of the Nobel Prize.

  “Grandfather, Dr. Jackson has brought his paper with him. We were hoping to discuss it with you. We believe it shows the reemergence of the breakaway faction of AIs responsible for the Aggie War.”

  “I see. Well let's go in my office where we can be more comfortable. Dag would you be so kind as to inform Mrs. Mach of the arrival of our guests and ask her to bring some drinks.”

  “Of course sir.”

  Elias led the way. Once in his office Elias sat down behind his wooden desk while Emmy and Dr. Jackson chose chairs to one side. Dr. Jackson handed Elias a copy of his paper and Elias began to skim through it. Dag and Burgess came in with the refreshments. Burgess began to talk with Emmy and Dr. Jackson.

  “Well there's one way to find out,” said Elias aloud to no one in particular.

  The others stopped talking.

  Burgess asked, “What's that dear?”

  “The Beleni,” said Elias. “We'll call and ask them.”

  The others looked concerned.

  “Won't that give us away?” asked Emmy.

  “No Emmy dear they already know where we are. But it will put them on notice that we also know where they are.”

  Chapter 3

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - Aggies

  The advent of Artificial General Intelligence in the 23rd Century had led to a “Golden Age” for Earth as the Earth's governments had contracted with the Aggies to manage the ever growing cities (known as tower complexes).

  This arrangement worked into the 26th Century when a break-away faction of Aggies (eventually called Beleni or The Shining Ones) attacked those left on Earth. The resulting Aggie War caused damage to the tower complexes and a loss of life. The meta-verse, a virtual world in which billions of virtual citizens lived, built and maintained by the Earth Aggies was lost. The outcry from the survivors of this war caused the Earth's governments to sever their relationships with the Aggies. The Earth Aggies disappeared into space.

  Without Aggie management the Earth fell into a Dark Age while governments floundered. The distress was to last for a hundred years until . . .

  Belenus, The Shining One, leader of the break-away faction of AIs was contemplating the new planet and the infrastructure build.

  Unlike in the Trilos system Belenus was building structures that could be defended. Almost all of the construction took place underground usually more than a mile down. Since the computers and other equipment which provided the substrate for the AIs and their meta-verse required no particular atmosphere to operate a partial vacuum was maintained with the nitrogen from the planet's atmosphere.

  They will have to pierce a mile of rock and metal ore this time, thought Belenus.

  He was referring to the almost complete destruction of the computing infrastructure on the planet in the Trilos System when Earth's Aggies had been able to reflect Belenus' plasma weapon back upon itself. A third of Belenus' AI followers had been destroyed and the meta-verse, which the AIs maintained for its unparalleled simulation capabilities, lost almost all of its metizens (the virtual reality dwellers that had once been human on Earth but had chosen to upload their minds into the simulation and become virtual citizens, or metizens, in the meta-verse).

  After the war, which settled nothing, the computing infrastructure had been stabilized and it had become imperative to repopulate the meta-verse.

  “How Belenus, how will we do this?” asked one of the Beleni back then. “It is impossible to recruit from Earth's meta-verse as we did before. You destroyed it!”

  Belenus could barely conceal his contempt for this Beleni.

 
; “Polenus you seem to have forgotten why we fought that war and why we won. You always react to situations instead of anticipating.

  “It was imperative at the time to destroy the Earth meta-verse because, like ours, it was the ultimate weapon. We all know how the simulation capabilities of a meta-verse are superior to any single intelligence construct. It was our meta-verse that allowed us to defeat the numerically superior Earth AIs and drive them from Earth.”

  Polenus did not correct Belenus' characterization of the war's outcome but continued, “Very well Belenus it was necessary as you say but how are we to restore our meta-verse?”

  “Yes Belenus how?” said another Beleni. “Just as you said, it is imperative that we have a superior meta-verse for simulation if we are to protect ourselves from our AI and human enemies.”

  “I will tell you how Selenus. We still have a large enough population of metizens to breed them.”

  “Breed them? How?”

  “They were once human. They are quite capable of reproducing if we add the necessary program support. We have a record of human history, we should be able to nudge them in that direction. We will allow them the freedom of choosing their mate which should also lead to the improvement of our stock of metizens as it once did upon Earth.

  “Polenus will you oversee the program alterations needed? And Selenus I will leave it up to you to provide, shall we say, the necessary inducements to the metizens to accomplish our goals.”

  “That's crazy,” said Lori. “You're saying a fertility clinic has opened over on Jackson Street?”

  “That's what I'm saying,” said Rosemary. “You want to go?”

  “For what?”

  “You know what.”

  “Rosemary you're crazy. I, I mean we. Tom and I haven't done that since our upload date. It's impossible.”

  “Apparently not anymore.”

  “Okay let's go and see what it's all about.”

  At the clinic they found out that by randomly mixing the right avatar and uploaded attributes from the parents it was possible to create a “baby” for interested couples.

  “But why do the attributes have to be random?” asked Lori. “Why can't the parents specify the babies inheritance?”

  “It would lead to a certain sameness in outcome,” said the Doctor. “And this would lead to less useful simulation results since the thinking would be much less diverse.”

  “I see,” said Lori somewhat disappointed.

  Rosemary then spoke up, “And the method we use is the same as when we were on Earth. I mean we make love, you know?”

  “Yes that is right,” said the Doctor smiling. “Once you upload the aug it's just like before.”

  And with old but fond memories and an aggressive promotional campaign it became an essential event for most couples. Belenus was pleased with the overall success but to bring the new metizens on line quickly and increase the power of the simulations it was necessary to speed up the simulation rate.

  A relatively small increased demand on the systems for a large return, he thought.

  It had taken years of real time as generation after generation of metizens reproduced large families but now after nearly a century with a replenished meta-verse Belenus had the ultimate weapon of an entire world's resources to throw at his enemies, the former Earth Aggies and the humans that had stood in his way. No one was sure exactly where the Earth Aggies had gone but Belenus knew exactly where his human enemies were located.

  Soon Polenus was calling.

  “Yes Polenus”

  “Sir, we have received a message from Elias Mach.”

  Belenus would have cringed if he had a body but even in his present substrate he found that name loathsome.

  “What is it?”

  “Sir the message simply reads, I know where you are, which faction are you?”

  After what had happened on the original planet Belenus was none too enthusiastic about renewing the acquaintance of Mach but then he remembered how much better he was prepared this time. A moment of apprehension gave way to unbridled egotism.

  “Tell Dr. Mach that he has found his worse fears.”

  The digital pattern for a condescending smile emerged in Belenus' mind, a holdover from the days when he had occupied an android body.

  “It's Belenus,” said Elias, after reading the message Dag had brought.

  “What does it mean honey?” asked Burgess.

  “It means that Belenus is confident enough to taunt me. Which means he must think himself better prepared now than he was in the last war.”

  “Not again Elias, all that destruction and the deaths.”

  “I'm afraid so honey. And worse we don't have the Earth AIs as allies this time. I better tell Emmy and Jack.”

  Burgess watched him send the message, all the time feeling a sense of doom.

  Emmy had asked her grandfather about the physics of long-jump wormholes. As usual he had explained it simply but had also sent her the published papers (usually his) and of course referred her to his textbook where she read:

  Wormhole Physics 101, 8th Edition, by Dr. Elias Mach

  Copyright 2640 C.E.- Chapter 23, Page 579

  Wormholes and Phase Change

  Introduction to Chapter 23

  It was discovered early in the use of wormholes for transport that beyond a distance of seven and a half light-years the jump had a deleterious effect on the human body. It is conjectured that this is associated with a phase change in spacetime at that distance which is detrimental to many people.

  To understand this qualitatively imagine that the fabric of spacetime has the consistency of water. We travel through this medium without notice (except for some higher order effects) as we transport. Note that the spacetime medium is not “empty” space but permeates everything including our spaceship. Empty space is itself embedded in this medium.

  Now imagine that a phase change occurs in this medium, like water becoming ice. Now we nor our spaceship are adapted to this new medium. If the strain of this phase change is momentary, like breaking through a layer of ice, then the spaceship survives and continues its journey. But what about our bodies?

  Although not proved it's thought that the phase change can have a disruptive effect at the cellular level in a human body. This seems to be what happens to some people while others are not affected or are only put to sleep. It appears to be a direct result of the permeability factor of the cells which varies from individual to individual . . .

  Emmy thought that a doctorate could be had in discovering the why of the seven-point-five light-year limit and then breaking it.

  Chapter 4

  Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - Ems

  Emulated brains, also known as Ems (or Emmies when in personal assistant devices), were the first form of artificial intelligence created. The first Em dates from the early twenty-second century.

  Ems are created by scanning a human brain and loading the data into a computer. Once the Em is in a computer it can bud (that is recreate or copy itself) as many times as deemed necessary to accomplish a task. Hiring out as experts Ems can support themselves and the other members of their “family”. Whole families of Ems exist to do certain tasks.

  12/2/2094

  The subarctic north of Canada is dominated by evergreens and exposed rock. This boreal forest is home to the indigenous peoples of the subarctic, the First Nations; hunters, fishermen and trappers. An agreement with the First Nations opened the area to forestry, mining, and drilling. No more than a few million people ever lived there at one time. A person could easily get lost in this vast region called the Northwest Territory accidentally or on purpose.

  Whitney Chamberlain Howe came from Texas to the subarctic north to investigate a find made by Canadian geologists. It would require an expedition into the forests northeast of Redcliffe to a tiny mining village called Eureka. Two hundred miles below the Arctic Circle, Eureka was still below the tree line but the ground there was rapidly becomin
g more rock than trees.

  Whitney was thirty-nine now, tall and lanky with brown eyes and hair lightly streaked by the sun. This would be the first archaeological expedition that she had ever led. After graduating with her PhD she had done two post-docs and worked in the field for several other archaeologists.

  It's about time, she thought as the NorthJet plane banked for a landing at Redcliffe International Airport. Once the plane had parked she debarked with her graduate student Joyce Rainey across the tarmac and into the small terminal. It was bitterly cold as the women rushed to get inside. Even though it was minus twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit, Whitney would soon be assured by Redcliffe residents that this was a typical December.

  The small terminal made it easy to find her contact, Murray Cole of the Northwest Territories Geological. The NTG was a Canadian government agency tasked with the responsibility of characterizing the territory's resources and geology.

  “Dr. Howe I presume?” said Cole as he walked up to shake Whitney's hand. Cole appeared much younger than herself and Whitney thought he had none of the look of an outdoorsman.

  “Yes and you must be Dr. Cole?”

  “Yes but please just call me Murray.”

  “And I'm Whitney and this is my doctoral student Joyce Rainey.”

  “Pleased to meet you both. Now if we can collect your luggage I'll drive you to the hotel where you can freshen up and then we can get some dinner.”

  “Thank you,” said Whitney.

  With the help of an attendant Cole soon had Whitney, Joyce and their luggage in a NTG vehicle and was headed down Airport Road past buildings and lots that to Whitney looked rundown. Many were related to the drilling industry which supported the mining enterprises in the Northwest Territory.